5.07.2010

This awesome painting was bought by my in-laws at an estate sale in Florida and arrived via giant tube in our mail last week. Painted by Alex Tavoularis (brother of Dean Tavoularis), who's got an IMDB page so cool you'd expect nothing less than a cute nude blonde crawling around his floor: locations for Coppola's 1974 "The Conversation", art department on The Godfather 2 and 3, production illustrator of Apocalypse Now and half a dozen other Coppola films, designer of the "Taarna" segment of Heavy Metal, the early Star Wars storyboards, etc...

I'm not sure what the story is with the painting, but she could conceivably be anyone: a Playboy Bunny from Apocalypse Now, a girlfriend from Laurel Canyon, a waitress from Marathon, a scuba diver from Key Largo modeling a Taarna look, Teri Garr... but unless informed otherwise I'm going to assume she's most likely an early concept for Princess Leia.